I just red through Frank Wu's Science Wankery.
https://archive.fo/uD5hu
Okay, at the end, I simply skimmed through it. It's basically about a NiceGuy!submarine Robot, who has a boner for a female scientist. Then the NiceGuy!Robot stares at an Octopus. For several years. Octopus sex ensues. Octopus lays eggs, saves them, dies. In the meantime an atomic blast happened, and the beloved female scientist is fried. NiceGuy!Robot becomes emo, and finds mutant octopoi or some shit (that was the part where I simply scrolled through the text.). NiceGuy!Robot muses a bit about not interfering with Nature, evolution, civilisation and stuff, and offs himself in the END.
Considering that Frank Wu and Brianna try to suck up to the genderfluid SJW-crowd (despite the fact, that Brianna can't bring herself to admit, that she is not so much a true and honest CIS-Woman...), this story is surprisingly heteronormativly written, as NiceGuy!Robot is named Karl and male pronouns are used. Which makes not so much sense, when you consider that he is actually only a sort of sentinent submarine, commissioned to watch oceanlife.
Firstly:
"Your breasts are globular and luminous, like comb jellies in the moonlight, your feet lovely as giant marine isopods."
...this needs to be added to the random.txt.
Secondly:
This is bad writing, really, REALLY bad writing. It is the most pretentious shit I've read in a long while. I guess this story either never had an editorial pass, or this shit was filled with so much purple prose, the editor spared us either something truly horrible or something deeply amusing.
If this is the quality needed to win an award of "Best Short Story" in the US, let alone to get published, I should quit my job, move to America and live off the sweet-sweet award money I get by farting on cocktail napkins.
I could tear this thing to pieces, beginning with the fact that a robot submarine is repairing itself on a beach, and it is main concern is, that some doodad might let water leak in, if it not properly lubed... (huehuehue)
A) That is a shitty construction, if the life and death of a autonomous submarine with a General AI on board hinges on whether one piece is properly greased or not
and B) Did Frank ever hear of sand? It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere! Especially if you try top repair sensitive equipment on a beach.
..but if I pick this thing apart bit by bit, we will be here tomorrow.
The best way to criticize this story is this:
This is a short-story written by Frank.
Frank is a biologist with a boner for maritime life, that is why he spills out all the biological facts in the most uninteresting manner possible, but apart from that he has no idea about science, submarines, AIs, science fiction or writing in general. You see, Frank is not very talented and just recycles the old plot where mankind destroys itself and their last creation uplifts a new species. But at least Frank could get back at Matt Richter from work with a few paragraphs, where Matt is the idiot of his story. Also the submarine in his story has a boner for a lady, despite there being no reason for that. Because, you know, AIs are all just super-intelligent teenagers.
But all these shortcomings don't matter, since Frank is best buds with the editorial staff of Analog-Magazine! In fact, some people say Frank had to suck so many cocks in order to get his little award, that he can't close his mouth anymore.
